Momentum goes a long way. It carried OG all the way from the Regional Qualifiers of the Frankfurt Majors to the Grand Finals. A week ago OG would have been a terrible prospect for any potential opponent. Face the winner of DreamLeague Season 4 and the EG and Secret slayers of the Frankfurt Majors? No thanks. However, for Alliance and Liquid, they will be heading to Berlin in extremely high spirits after what went down yesterday.
The Defense Season V LAN Competing Teams
OG (joinDOTA Team Rankings #1) Team Liquid (joinDOTA Team Rankings #8)
Alliance (joinDOTA Team Rankings #13)
Team Kinguin* (joinDOTA Team Rankings #49)Prize Pool: $77,800 (check) // Location: Berlin, Germany
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Team Liquid and OG - brothers in arms but not in glory
Team Liquid's 2-1 result in Starladder last night against Team Secret of all teams, may have converted a few new followers behind them for the coming Major season, but The Defense tomorrow is where they can finally make their mark on the scene after several months of living in OG's shadow.
Monkey Business and 5Jungz started out in The Defense back in September as fledling teams, unproven and potentially unstable they were given a spot in the competition. They each worked the EU qualifiers for different events, and soon after both found sponsorship, 5Jungz with Team Liquid and Monkey Business with their own creation OG.
However, their tales of glory have not been as similar, and Liquid have mostly fought over scraps. Kuroky and his team-mates have beaten OG, but it was over 2 months ago, and before OG's run of success began. OG have since not only won Dream League Season 4 but of course the first-ever Valve Dota 2 Major in Frankfurt.
In comparison Team Liquid finished 4th at Nanyang Championships, and won the D2CL Season 6 Grand Finals which took place during the Frankfurt Majors, the same star-studded event OG went on to win.
Kuroky was all smiles on stage at Nanyang Championships where TL finished 4th (Source)Team Liquid have yet to officially "arrive", a string of good results has yielded only one title, and the team missed out on the MLG World Finals and the Frankfurt Majors (They did not receive an invite to the ESL one New York qualifiers). Nanyang Shmangyang, tomorrow is when Team Liquid's real hunt for glory begins, and after defeating Secret the Liquid boys should be buzzing going into Day 1 of the Defense Season 5 LAN Finals.
Alliance will be riding high after VP victory
Team Liquid were not the only ones involved in an unpredictable match yesterday, Alliance were also competing in Starladder in their final match before heading to Berlin. JUst before the match against VP Alliance posted that
Johan 'Mynuts' Andersson would be leaving the team and 
Rene 'Kebap' Werner would be playing as a stand-in. Expectations were low going into their match against VP, but after Alliance turned the series around they confirmed Kepab would be representing the team at the Defense Season 5 LAN tomorrow. 
MyNuts who played for Alliance at Frankfurt Majors is out of the team, will they regret it?The first game was quite an abysmal one for Alliance, and the commentators KotlGuy and Clairvoyance joked about whether today was not a day for Alliance to "be back" again. It is fair to say the first game was quite the train wreck, but by the second and third game, they weren't laughing anymore.
After the awkward first game against Virtus Pro Twitch chat was asking Loda tips for Lifestealer, questioning whether they should "Infest like how you sit inside a team doing nothing" or "Feast like how you feed the opponents whenever you play". However, Loda was infact game two's star player, ending the game with 20-1 on Juggernaut in the swift 35-minute game.
Game three had rat written all over it, and Alliance dragged the game out for almost 90 minutes to secure a 2-1 victory over VP, a team who beat OG 2-1 the day before. Rather unsurprisingly the last game featured a certain AdmiralBulldog on a Nature's Prophet, it seems VP paid no heed to the ancient meme.
Yesterday's game was crucial for Alliance's mindset, especially having lost to OG themselves 2-0 this week. Despite using a stand-in for tomorrow's event the positivity from the victory against VP could mean we will see a stronger Alliance than we saw at the Majors.
Team Alternate - Present to pick off any stragglers
Team Alternate are not be counted out but anything higher than 3rd or 4th would be mind-blowing. They've taken the odd game off high tier opponents such as VP and Empire in the online stage of The Defense Season V, but with the format being a bo2, whether or not they can take full series versus top opposition is unlikely. Their easiest target will be Alliance, who if they get swept away by Liquid in round 1, could be easy pickings for Alternate if they're feeling a bit off.
The Grid - Now official! Hooray
Cast your votes, Which TWO teams will reach the Grand Finals?
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